


When did you...

by Davechicken



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-12
Updated: 2016-05-12
Packaged: 2018-06-07 22:03:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6826558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Davechicken/pseuds/Davechicken
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>...fall in love?</p>
            </blockquote>





	When did you...

It’s a complicated thing, love. When he’s five and Poe is seven and the height of friendship is sharing your lunch, Poe is his best friend. They don’t _need_ to swap and trade boxes of fruit and snacks, but they do, anyway. Ben realises Poe tries to give him his favourite things about the same time he notices he’s doing the same. This is love.

When he’s nine and Poe is twelve, Poe has every right to ditch him for the kids his own age. He’s doing more complex stuff at school, and although Ben tries to help him with his homework, he doesn’t always get it. Poe always says he’s helping by listening, and Ben tries his hardest. They play holo-games, and still stay up til way too late until they sleep the sleep of the well-wrung out. This is also love.

When he’s eleven and Poe is thirteen, they barely see one another. Ben hates this. He knows he wants to be around Poe, just - just because, okay. Life feels better with him there. He doesn’t fully understand, he just knows in his gut that Poe is supposed to be close by. Holo-calls are nothing like just talking to his best friend, and Poe is happy for him being a Jedi (and, although he won’t admit it, even to himself, a little jealous), but Ben just wants the easy camaraderie back. He wants the daydreams and the endless summer days and the splashing water and the way he can tell Poe almost _anything_. This is definitely love.

When he’s fifteen, and Poe is seventeen, it’s probably not love quite as much. Or, love is there, but it’s buried under infatuation and obsession. Things are getting worse for him, and he lacks the grounding presence. He sees Poe grow up from afar, and he resents him. Resents the easy charm and quick smile. Resents the way he’s becoming what he wanted to be, all along. Resents and also is proud, and is confused by the contradictory emotions. He wants Poe to be the happiest he can be, but he also wishes Poe feels the same level of distress and unease as Ben does, to validate his terrible, fear-mad longing.

He also starts to think things. They are not childish things. They are not, yet, adult things. It’s confusing, and he’s guilt-ridden, and he wishes he could tell Poe about it, but Poe is having a Life and Ben’s life is looking increasingly like one of two non-choices. Submit, and be emptied out and hollowed. Submit, and be everything your family swore to eradicate. Neither look appealing, and he doesn’t tell Poe about the choice he’s making.

That’s a grave mistake.

When he’s older, taller, and no longer a boy in the eyes of the law… when he’s no longer _Ben_ , but a man of a different name… he tries not to think back on the pleasant memories of before, tries to not remember a smile reflected in a wobble of lime-green jello. Tries not to think _wait til I tell Poe about this_. Tries to remove the whole of him from his life, from the past. 

Poe would not love Kylo Ren, so Kylo Ren must not allow himself to love Poe Dameron.

But _oh_ , in his dreams he does. In the moments between the acts and deeds, in the quiet places. When there’s no one else’s voice around, he hears him. Hears him, like a conscience. Like a memory. Like a homing beacon. He hears him thinking this is _wrong_ , reminding him what he’s known all along. He remembers their soft dreams, and knows that they could have… they could have been something. Maybe not a together-something, because he isn’t sure Poe even liked him (or could like him) like that, but in a know-you-forever-all-my-secrets-you’re-my-best-friend kind of way. 

He loves Poe, but Poe can’t possibly love him.

He wants to go back, to confess every last sin with a tongue that remembers ice crystals and cries of pain from skinned knees. He wants to go back, and beg Poe to turn back the chrono, to make things as they were, to live forever in that almost-innocence. He wants to be a different person, but he knows that even the wanting is **forbidden** , and has to be kept locked tight in a little box inside of him and only brought out for glimpses. 

He isn’t sure what love is, but he knows he feels it, and he knows it’s too late. 

The box is shut. Shut so tightly. Jakku sands that never touch his skin. Eyes that don’t meet across a room. He takes the information, and he doesn’t know _what next_. He has the map - or a map to the map - and he doesn’t know what to do with him. The sensible thing would be to **end him** , if he’s got everything he needs from him. The sensible thing.

Kylo doesn’t know how to be sensible. Not around Poe. 

He’s trying to work out how he gets out of this with his soul and his life intact when the choice is taken from him. And if anything, he’s angry _he didn’t get to make the choice himself_. 

But Poe is safe. And gone. And Poe won’t ever love him back, not now.

 _But that doesn’t stop how he feels_ , and he knows - in the quiet places in his head - that this is his fate, and this is how he knows it’s **true**. He loves him without any hope for reciprocity, and he loves him without any hope for a happy ending. He loves him, and when it started is impossible to tell. 

He does know, however, that no matter how tightly he seals that box that was _them_ , and no matter how far away he is from the man who is **now** , that he loves him. He loves him, and he’s doomed. 


End file.
